


infinitesimal

by cosmonaughtt



Series: ✨2019 ✨ [5]
Category: Danny Phantom, Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Also headcanons, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And they don't want to deal with it so they're just putting it aside for now, Aziraphale is not fully an angel and Crowley is not fully a demon, Crack Treated Seriously, Crossover, Gabriel is an asshole, Heaven and Hell are both full of Assholes, Ineffable Husbands? More like Insufferable Husbands get TOGETHER already, Multi, Where did this idea come from? Not even I know, Which is basically me with all my problems
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2020-05-19 23:05:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19365565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmonaughtt/pseuds/cosmonaughtt
Summary: The world ended, but it didn't, but it did.Aziraphale and Crowley are trying to navigate post-Armageddon't while their world is changing around them-- and it seems they may have changed, a bit, too.Danny Fenton thought he'd finally adjusted to the craziness that was his world. Ghost attacks, being a ghost, repressing the mortality of  it all while trying to get through high school. But when heaven and hell both come knocking, literally, it seems he's in for a treat as the  Plan B for the Apocalypse.





	1. The End Was Just A Disguised Beginning

Agnes Nutter knew as she wrote down her last prophecy that the world was going to End. The world that she had grown accustomed too went dark, too— her vision was beginning to fade. It was a right payment, for her sight to fail just as her Sight ends.

But then she sees a small spark— the corners of her vision have gone completely black, charred out like the edges of paper that had been caught in a blaze. The small spark grows, and she sees a world—

A world after The End.

She doesn’t know how it is possible—her vision and her Vision were both fading, but there it was. The End was not merely The End—perhaps, it was The End of one world and The Beginning of a new? Rome had fallen. But it survived, somehow. And so did the world, no matter what was thrown at it.

It’s a small spark, and she reaches out to it, delicately, like holding a newborn baby. The ineffable plan of the universe seemed to get a lot more confusing— and for Agnes, a lot more interesting.

The vision settled in her skin, and she saw it. She saw a beautiful girl, with the same magic as hers, and Agnes knew immediately then that this was her kin. She sat in a large field, accompanies by another boy, the Witchfinder, with a small fire burning. Papers are thrown into the fire— _prophetic_ papers. Not the book she’d worked so hard on to complete, all the years of her life that ends at The End. But it’s Agnes’ own work. Does the universe plan for her to write another? It was to go up in flames, nonetheless, but she didn’t question the sign from her visions.

The paper sparked in the fire, sending embers in the air— and even though her Vision begins to fade as her blood and her enemies’ blood, now entangled in love that rivaled the heavens, new sparks began to form.

It was beautiful, but also on a horrifying level Agnes had never experienced.

Her visions would always come from little sparks of light, little stars. One at a time they would greet her, sometimes two or three consecutively, the most coming when it got closer to The End and ending with her vision fading.

But they surrounded her. She was drowning in their lights, illuminating her world, in a sea full of stars. They had no order, no line, no sense of direction, floating aimlessly through the sky. _This is after The End_ , Agnes knows, she feels it deep in her soul and it terrifies her to think that each of these visions happen, but in what order?

As a spark draws near, she reaches out to it, her palm open. A few float closer, but one lands, and she sees two figures, sitting on a bench, in a field but not a field— oh, a park. People in the future had such weird names she never understood. She recognized them, instantly— the angel and the demon, the ones who swapped faces to face the torment of the fire and the flood. They survived; Agnes felt a sigh of relief.

The vision ended. The world came back to her in clarity but also not, Agnes was floating in the sea of the night sky but also on the ground in her lovely old cottage.

She knew there were only a few more moons until the Witchfinder would come. She knew there were only a few more moons before the village she’d known her entire life, the one she was born in and the one she raised her children in, would come to an end.

Agnes knew that they had all the time in the world after The End, but she was on a tight schedule.

Well, then.

She grabbed what she could find and began writing down what she could see.

* * *

 

_There will be an Accident, and from it will come a boy who will walk between both Life and Death._

You see, the Apocalypse may have been prevented, and the world was living on, but certain inhabitants did not approve of such a matter. Angels and demons, both Heaven and Hell, were ready to fight in the war, a war that had taken nearly six thousand years to begin, and then it was stopped, by two of their own, and the damn Antichrist himself.

But on that day in England, when all was not right with the world, another event was happening right across the waters of the Atlantic.

His name was Daniel Fenton—though, he preferred Danny. He was a skinny, lanky boy, who had just turned fourteen and who had just begun his journey through his own personal hell known as _high school._ Despite being rather shy and a loner, he did have two good friends by his side, the best in the whole world.

Samantha Manson and Tucker Foley.  Sam (as she preferred, or those incurring her wrath would be met with a boot to the foot, the shin, the face, or other unfortunate places) and Tucker and Danny were bound tight by their friendship. The trio was strong, their friendship was built on a solid cornerstone preventing it from toppling. They were with him, on that day that the world was ending.

(Not that any of them knew it. They’d thought the story of Atlantis being found, like most people, was a gag for a cruise ships, and storms appearing in England were evidence of global warming, not The End.)

All three of them were holed up in Danny’s home, watching movie after movie on Netflix. The day was rainy in Amity Park as well, where the trio and their families took up home. There were few places that were indeed, truly sunny on that day during The End. Danny’s parents were out of town on a college trip with his older sister, leaving the trio to the home themselves.

Something to note about Danny’s family—they were paranormal investigators. Ghost hunters. Supernatural scientists— seen as crazy and insane in the eyes of the public. After all, no evidence for ghosts had ever surfaced in their thirty-plus years of being in the science. There was no belief in ghosts, just as belief in God and Heaven and Hell began to fade from humanity. In the two years leading up to that date, Danny’s parents built a “portal” to what the dubbed as “The Ghost Zone”, where ghosts existed.

Ghosts did exist in their own, separate dimension, just as you and I might. But that is not relevant to the story. What is relevant, however, is Sam’s interest in ghosts.

“Fine. We can have a look.” Danny never liked his parents’ obsession with ghosts. If there was a social ladder at his school, Danny would be six feet underground and still digging. It would _haunt_ him forever, if you will. But Sam (and Tucker, too) wanted to see the infamous portal to the Ghost Zone.

Which, due to a few misplaced wires and buttons, didn’t work.

They entered the lab, hidden in the basement of the Fenton family townhouse, just as a group of kids rode their bikes onto a military base in England. All of these events coincided with The End.

The End was not, just as Agnes had seen years before, _the end of everything._ No, it was more of a metaphorical End, an End to an old life and the Beginning of a new life. God, the universe, whatever you may believe in, had grown bored of watching human life grow exponentially into rather monotone, dull lives. Even with an angel and a demon dancing circles around their feelings for each other, six thousand years of the same routine can be boring for Her.

So, everything was going according to her Ineffable Plan. That is, the End of an era. The beginning of a new one was next.

Danny Fenton zipped himself into his hazmat suit, the one that had been made by his mother months before if he “ever got interested in the family business”. It was a dull white and black, with a belt that looped around his waist and large pockets he requested solely because he planned on using it for his Halloween costume, and large pockets meant he could carry more candy that year.

Adam Young found himself in front of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—War. Famine. Pollution. Death. But he also found himself surrounded by his friends—his own horsemen. He was the Antichrist and he could feel reality bend between his toes, they could be his own horsemen if he wanted to.

Danny Fenton stepped inside a machine his parents built, his two friends standing outside and staring at the strange technology in awe.

All the horsemen were dead, sans for Death, who fled in a hurry as Famine took a knee and fell to the power of a bright, flaming, angelic sword.

There were loose wires all over the portal inside.

Time froze, for a second, and Adam found himself next to the two strange adults—an angel and a demon, an unlikely duo, the voices in his head told him—and he was told his father was coming. His “ethereal” father—Satan, Lucifer _himself._

His foot got caught in a mess of wires. They were never organized in his house, and he leaned his hand against the wall to free it.

_“You are not my dad!”_

_Click._

The world began to change. It Ended, but it also Began.

* * *

Though Adam Young relinquishes most of his powers (a bit of magic is left in him, still, a reminder of who-and-what he is, along with an eleven-year-old being given magic to bend reality is not going to wish _all_ of it away, just most of it) and resets time to how it was before The End, it does not change a few things.

One; Danny Fenton is in the hospital. His pulse and breathing are low, but he sits up among doctors, poking and prodding him to make sure that, despite what they can see, he is truly okay.

Two; the angel known as Aziraphale and the demon known as Crowley are no longer related to their respective causes. A mini-adventure in its own and switching bodies did the trick to fool Heaven and Hell that they were both _more_ than angel and demon, immune to both hellfire and holy water. They still are, angel and demon, for the most part. Neither of them want to point out the small flecks of other colors in their wings, how the black wings of Crowley sparkle iridescent colors like a puddle of oil when the light hits them, or how Aziraphale’s wings sparkle silver and gold and like freshly fallen snow. It would be facing a new reality, and it wasn’t time for that yet.

Three; the world had already changed in a way that even the Antichrist couldn’t change.

And finally, four; Agnes Nutter was witness to prophetic visions that changed, suddenly. She no longer saw time on a linear sense, she was able to see time as it truly was, an ocean of lights with moments from different times and different timelines floating all around her. And though her book of new prophecies may have been burned after The End, there was someone who had owned the book herself, just as the Device family had owned it. The only difference was, the book was hidden. 


	2. Puzzle Pieces and Angels Lies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know where the "puzzle pieces" comes into play from the chapter title. It just sounded cool, okay?
> 
> Anyway, this fanfic is still rattling around in my head and I spit out another chapter. I hope you guys enjoyed it!
> 
> Gonna try and switch it up from my other fics and have my notes at the top, so you all can be blessed with my glorious words before reading another chapter. Or you can just... skip over it.
> 
> I hope I wrote Aziraphale and Crowley right. My first time trying to, if you have any tips please leave nicely-worded comments or message me on tumblr @cosmonaughtt !!

It was a rare spring day in England. The air was warm, and the sun shone brightly in the sky. Aziraphale was tempted to take one of his newest acquired books—an original copy of a story he’d never heard before, of a boy who finds himself in the middle of a war. A coming-of-age story, and if it is truly as entertaining as the seller of the book promised it was, would make a good gift to Adam.

He still had two hours to go, though, in his small little book shop, though it was more of a muddy goal than any set thing. His precious books, the old ones and original copies he looked hard for, were always in the back, safe and sound and away from prying eyes, but Aziraphale had to do something between his simple existence of reading, eating lunch with Crowley, and being in love with the world and with the humans God Herself put in place. Despite the fact that he was an angel and could miracle up everything he wanted, including money, there was something satisfying about working at a shop and earning money the right way, and not materializing it out of existence.

(Though, sometimes the voice of the demons in Hell as he laid in the bathtub of holy water in Crowley’s body echoed sometimes. _He’s gone native._ What that meant, Aziraphale didn’t know. He also didn’t want to focus on it.)

A few customers stopped in, taking in the sights of the old books. The awe and love that the angel felt off the humans washed away any adverse thoughts he’d had before. Two younger humans, teenagers or young adults, both took out their cell phones and began to take photos of themselves amongst the old bookshelves.

_Maybe I should get one,_ he thought to himself, glancing at the old landline he’d got only because Crowley made him get it. A cell phone would certainly have its uses. It reminded him too much of heaven, as well, and shrugged the idea off again (like water falling off a duck).

After the last of the customers had left and another hour had passed, Aziraphale decided that he was going to close early, the beautiful day in London was calling and he couldn’t sit still. He miracled away most of the mess that had before closing the door and beginning his walk through the city.

(It always left him wondering-- should he still call it a “miracle”? Yes, while it was true that Aziraphale was still an angel—at least, he felt like one and never felt like he’d “Fallen” and lost any Grace—he also noticed the way his feathers glimmered in the sunlight in a different way. It wasn’t Adam who had done it, it was something else.)

Unsurprisingly, Crowley met him there. St. James’ Park was one of their favorite places to go. Though Crowley all but ignored the book that Aziraphale was trying to read and began complaining about something menial and something human.

It was at those odd times that he realized that they had all the time in the world, but _nothing to do in it._

Aziraphale allowed Crowley’s story of some menial complaint go through his head as he stared off and froze. He blinked, a few times, recognizing a familiar figure staring at him from a distance with bright, yet brooding eyes the color of the purple flowers blooming around. It’d been months since he’d last seen that face, and it wasn’t _him_ that had seen it but _him_ through the eyes of Crowley.

“And then, she had the balls to—Angel, are you even listening?” Crowley nudged him. “What are you—“Crowley doesn’t finish the sentence, and Aziraphale feels him bristle up next to him. “The hell is that bastard doing here?”

Aziraphale shrugged. “He keeps looking at me, I think. Should I approach him and see what it’s about?”

“God—Satan— _Someone_ , no.” When you’re a disenfranchised demon, you don’t know exactly whose name to curse on. “What if…”

They both knew exactly what followed. Aziraphale could imagine it in his head, a vicious cycle of nightmares that could happen if he got up and followed. Burning hellfire, _an immortal death_. He wouldn’t have Crowley to help him, they wouldn’t be together, like this, on a sunny afternoon in London—

“He can’t take both of us on at the same time, you think?”

“Crowley—he’s, he’s an _archangel.”_ Yet the word doesn’t surprise the demon at all. He didn’t even flinch, only glance over his sunglasses.

(And, then again, what are _they_ , now?)

“And what of it?” Aziraphale gave him _the look_ , and the demon sighed. “Let’s go somewhere else then.”

Aziraphale smiled, but as they stood up and he tucked his book under his arm, there was the archangel _fucking_ Gabriel, in all of his holy glory. It was blinding, a bit, more than it had ever been before. But he didn’t flinch. Neither did Crowley.

“I come in peace. For now.” Gabriel held his hands out, proving to both of them that he’s unarmed. Not like he has a stash of weapons in an ethereal place only _he_ can reach. Aziraphale immediately put his sword in his little pocket as soon as he’d gotten it back, and he could reach it anytime.

“What do _you_ want?” Crowley is much too casual about the incident, in Aziraphale’s opinion.

“I just want to know. Have either of you seen a human teenager, about… this tall—” Gabriel motions to just above his bicep as he speaks. “-- with black hair, blue eyes?”

“Um… No?” It was a peculiar question. Aziraphale didn’t look at every human he passed, but just like any other angel (and demon, though he doesn’t know for sure) he felt them. Felt their emotions, surrounding him in a small bubble of warmth. There was an omniscient power, both shared by angels and demons, but not to the extent that God had. And nobody matching that description had passed.

Or, if they did, Aziraphale and Crowley didn’t take notice, because a lot of people passed them every day.

“Is this a cult thing?” Crowley asked, his sunglasses tipping over his nose, exposing the golden, snake-pupiled eyes to just the angel. .

“No.” Gabriel said. It’s too quick, too sudden—angels aren’t very good liars. Everyone knows that to be true. But there was something off about the abrupt response, the curt and quick “no” that sets off warning bells. It was something to do with heaven, and another human. Last time that happened, it was to do with the Antichrist. But what could it be, now?

“We haven’t seen anything.” Crowley said, before grabbing Aziraphale by the arm. “C’mon, let’s go.”

That does leave Aziraphale uncomfortable. Angels and humans didn’t interact much—he was the outsider, the seldom one who _did_ , the outcast. What was an angel—and at that, an archangel, Gabriel himself—doing with a human? A human teenager, a—a _child_?

“I don’t think they’re doing anything good.” Aziraphale said as soon as they were out of the park.

* * *

Danny was incredibly, inevitably, inconceivably _fucked._

Of course. Of course, it had to happen to him, the one person in the world it seems the universe is universally against. Whether it’s an angry God or misaligned planets or whatever astrology nonsense Sam got interested in for a hot minute a month ago and dropped because it got trendy with the A-Listers on Twitter. It seemed that, no matter what controlled the world, it had a problem with him.

Angels. Demons. Heaven. Hell. He’d learned more in the past day and a half about a sudden, new world that he should’ve known about but wasn’t graced with the knowledge of it.  Of course.

He hunches down behind a dumpster, hearing an echo of footsteps out of the alley. There’s a large scrape on his chest that’s bleeding and he’s trying to put pressure on it and hoping that as a human whatever scent he has is at least slightly less stinky than what he smells like as a ghost.

Angels. Demons. Heaven. Hell. Apparently, when you die and become a ghost, there’s some innate knowledge kept secret from humans that awakens upon death. He should’ve known that stuff, but he’s only half-dead. It never worked out in his favor.

The footsteps paused, and Danny froze, holding his breath. He didn’t know how long he could hold it. He didn’t _want_ to learn. It’s definitely an angel, Danny can tell, one of the ones that were after him. One of the strong ones—their auras, their energies, whatever it was, after being in Heaven he could _feel_ them now. Great, just what he needed, _more_ weird powers.

“We will find you, _halfa._ ” Hearing the nickname he’d gotten from ghosts on the tongue of an angel hunting him down made his blood boil. He bit his hip hard enough to taste a bit blood. “Working on our side, compared to the other, will be much better for you. I’d appreciate if you cooperated.”

Footsteps echoed again but in the opposite direction. The aura of the angel— _Gabriel, his name was Gabriel-- fades_ off.  Once it’s a considerable distance away, Danny allows himself to slide down the side of the dumpster and catch his breath.

He hadn’t had a second to, after being kidnapped by literal angels. His body was messed up because of jet lag, traveling across the Atlantic via _ethereal magic_ or whatever it was did not do kindly to him, either. Maybe Humans weren’t supposed to be in heaven, either.

This is how it happened; he was enjoying his weekend with Sam and Tucker. Ghost attacks had calmed down for some reason he didn’t know, and Danny was able to feel like a normal kid again. Sure, having ghost superpowers was cool and all, but he wasn’t quite a ghost, and not quite a human. He didn’t fit in anywhere, anymore.

Especially when a man with purple eyes walked up to him and asked him about the local ghosts, before abducting him in _broad daylight_. Sam and Tucker didn’t even protest. Two more figures stepped out of nowhere and snapped their fingers and Sam and Tucker froze, unresponsive. The world didn’t hear his calls as Danny was gagged and blindfolded.

Then he woke up in Heaven.

Danny had always thought of himself as an atheist. He didn’t truly believe in anything in particular—not that he didn’t think anything was out there, or that he believed in science and logic, but mostly to set himself apart and away from the wacky scientists he saw his family was. Then The Accident happened, and maybe Danny’s eyes opened a bit more to that.

Yeah, there’s life after death, he learned. Danny himself was a paradox of living and death, didn’t really know what he was but only knew that it was a _new thing_ , something that existed in the number-two, the other being Vlad. Maybe, he thought at some point, there were werewolves and vampires and other monsters that haunted the dark or the autumnal streets of Halloween.

But Heaven? Heaven, God, Angels, Demons? He definitely wasn’t expecting _that_. And heaven wasn’t the pearly white gates he’d heard talked about in elementary school by teachers who “didn’t force religion on the kids” but still talked about it anyway. It was corporate. It was wide, expansive, empty. Angels had wings but also hoverboards and smartphones. Windows opened up to a beautiful view of a city—London, he later recognized.

And they were not nice, either.

He was used to being looked down upon. Ghosts thought of him as _weak, human, living_ , humans thought of him as _weak, creepy, weird_ , and the only other person like him in the world wanted to kill his father and marry his mom. Which was, for a young fourteen-year-old boy, enough trauma to have already.

But when angels, who were supposed to be beacons of light, beings that he didn’t even know existed until just a few moments before, treated him the same way as ghosts and humans? Danny might’ve lost faith in the world.

_But there are always exceptions_ , a voice rang out in his head. He had his friends, he had Sam and Tucker. He had Valerie, kind of. Half the time. And he had Dora and Frostbite and Clockwork and peaceful ghosts who never did Amity harm. Exceptions.

Angels still sucked, though.

Apparently, there was some sort of Armageddon planned, and the world was supposed to end, and he was now _Plan B._ A _weapon_ to use against Hell. They threw a lot of plans at him, from involving possessing someone called “the antichrist” to “waltzing down to Hell and causing chaos”, but _weapon_ rung out in his mind. It echoed.

Naturally, Danny decided to nope out of there, but Heaven isn’t where he thought it was. It wasn’t some pearly white gates in the clouds, it was an empty office building somewhere in London that was completely devoid of any kind of emotion or love.

And now that he’s in London, without a phone or any way to get home, and he’s certain there are angels everywhere looking for him. Maybe demons, too. Great. _Great._

Just another day in the life of Danny _fucking_ Fenton.


	3. Always Have a Backup To Your Work, Kiddos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha, both in reference to modern-time fanfic and ancient prophetic books. 
> 
> Honestly whenever I write for this fic I literally feel like I'm being possessed by like... a fanfic demon or fanfic angel and suddenly there's a whole chapter ready and it's like, whoa, where did that come from. 
> 
> (Also kudos to The Froggy Ninja for giving me a few inspirations from their comment about Agnes Nutter ;) )

Agnes Nutter saw it happen right before her eyes, the small spark showing her the world after The End-- Anathema _. Burning. Fire._ Right after she’d spent months working on it. There were other visions intermingled with it, too. _Burning two copies. Burning one copy, keeping another copy. Not knowing about two copies. Not burning anything, enjoying a picnic. Accidentally setting the grass on fire. Not being on a picnic._

That’s what had been bothering her about her visions, after The End. There were many, almost as if time itself shatters after _the boy the angel the demon the devil the Adversary the denial the rebirth the existence_ —right after that, the world split. Not once, not twice, but into infinite possibilities. Shuffling through those visions had been hard, writing them down proved more _difficult_ , and organizing them was a mess of its own. There were many sparks, surrounding her, and she could only pray to the Heavens that this divine power was being used properly, for this time, for this universe.

She didn’t understand where the thoughts first came from. Her powers, her magic, existed to the point of challenging the Ineffable Plan. She knew things she shouldn’t—Agnes knew of a plan that was divine, she knew it existed, but details of it were left murky to her. Agnes knew, too, of the names of things and people she shouldn’t, and she knew—

She knew of the other worlds. Other universes? God had Her handful, it seemed.

Agnes had put in a request for a copy of her work to be made, but under a different name. Under something inconsequential, something that could hide in publication for years until people noticed when it was required. Until it fell into the hands of who needed it—and she saw what it was meant to be called, and she took the other parchment she had gathered and wrote down the name.

_A Guide to The World Of The Spirits._

It seemed simple enough. She saw the owner of the book, years in the future, a girl with hair of fire and name of a flower. She wrote down her first prophecy, the first _true_ prophecy down, for this girl of fire and flower. Hopefully, the book would find itself in the presence of its true owner and fade away from the illusion spell she had placed upon it.

* * *

 

Jasmine Fenton, too, has a role in this story. Not in being Danny’s elder sister, though that also tied her to the destiny of the universe as a whole.

She’d known, during her mother’s early years, that one single book had brought her mother closer to the world of ghosts—of spirits, of the Ghost Zone and ectobiology. She’d even read the book, but it never made sense to her. Ghosts never made sense to her. She never enjoyed them.

Until her younger brother was in the accident, and Jazz decided that he needed to be as far away from it as possible. The Accident, as the Fenton family had called it before avoided the topic completely, could have _traumatized_ him! She could only imagine the fear that Danny would develop of technology, and she had seen it as he avoided the lab completely, until the first ghost came out of the Fenton Portal and terrorized their town of Amity Park.

Looking back, it was obvious her brother was the so-proclaimed “Phantom”. How it worked, Jazz didn’t know, and as much as she wanted to find out, she didn’t want to push him to reveal his secret to her, or anybody. She’d stumbled upon him transforming into a ghost in an alley, after all. It was an accident, a fluke—and she’d keep her knowledge secret, too.

And then he’d come up to her with the Fenton Boo-merang (and Jazz noted that Danny _and_ Phantom got the pun-loving from their father at that moment, too) with her headband tied to it, and a note. She didn’t remember writing the note, and her headband was wrapped around her hair still. There was a brief moment of silence between them, before they hugged. She squeezed him a bit too much, but he didn’t need to breathe as much anymore so she slid away with it.

Jazz tried to help with “ghost-hunting”, but it wasn’t for her. The front lines weren’t what she was meant for. That was fine-- her head was better being devoured in a book, after all. She raided the bookshelves of her parents, full of textbooks on _Ghost Theory_ and _Ectoplasmic Science and Biology_ and read every word, studied every paragraph break and took notes.

_Ghosts are real,_ she replied, when her parents asked about her sudden interest. _I want to know about them so I don’t, um, accidentally anger them?_

But this book, now sitting in front of her, wasn’t what she was expected. It was the last book—the climax of her search of her parent’s (small) library. One she'd read before and never understood.

_A Guide to the World of Spirits._

The book was old—older than, no doubt, the building she existed in, and perhaps the town itself. How her parents got their hands on it, Jazz couldn’t figure out. She opened it and was greeted with the smell of old books, of decaying paper and a warm feeling, like curling up in a large chair in a bookstore and devouring a book from cover to cover. Not a feeling she’d ever had before.

She flipped to the first page.

_The world of spirits is highly debated—_

As Jazz began to read, the words began to fade. Not disappear from her view completely, but instead, the words began to diffract like they would if the book was submerged in water. They wobbled in and out, before rearranging themselves to form a different language.

This wasn’t _normal._ This wasn’t science, either—this was something else. Ghostly power? Magic?

No, Jasmine didn’t believe in magic. She understood ghosts were _science_ and _fact_ and logic, it is what her parents studied their whole lives.

But this seemed like magic, especially as the words rearranged and read this;

_Girl of fire and of flower, hear my plea—_

_Thyne brother has been taken to a land across the sea_

_Forces of Heaven and Hell plan to cause a Great War again,_

_And the boy who walks between life and death may be the catalyst of The End_

She dropped the book, her memory racing. When was the last time she’d seen Danny? It’d been—it’d been two entire days. Two days of her memory, of her brother, suddenly disappeared. He hadn’t snuck in and out when she wasn’t watching, he hadn’t flown out invisibly.

He had been taken? She didn’t notice. “Fuck,” she said, picking the book up, carefully. The cover had changed, too.

_The Second Book of Mostly Accurate Prophecies by Agnes Nutter, Witch_

Her phone was out faster than she’d ever pulled it out. She had Sam and Tucker’s numbers and dialed whichever one came up first.

_“Jazz? What’s up?”_ Tucker’s voice echoed on the other end, and she heard Sam in the background, too. They were outside somewhere.

“Have you seen Danny?”

_“What? No, he called us and told us he wasn’t coming to school today. Said he was sick.”_ Tucker explained. _“Hold on.”_ There was shuffling, and the background noise dulled and quieted. _“What’s wrong?”_

“He’s been taken.”

_“What? How?”_ Sam’s voice echoed the same time as Tucker’s.

“I—I don’t know. I was reading this book and suddenly the words changed and said he was somewhere else, and…” She stuttered, cursing under her breath. “When was the last time you two saw him?”

_“Uh, two days ago. Saw him Phantom out, and…”_ Tucker trailed off. _“…He turned into Phantom, and, uh… Shit. Sam?”_

_“I… I don’t know, either,”_ Sam said, on the other end. _“Shit. Damn. What’s happening? Why can’t I—why can’t_ we _remember anything?”_

Jazz pulled the book back up into her face. Two words stuck out to her.

_Heaven._

_Hell._

“Oh, Danny, what did you get yourself into?” Jazz asked aloud, before sighing and cursing. Again. This isn’t how she wanted her Friday to go. “Where are you guys right now?”

_“Sam just got out of Eco Club, and we were going to head out to the Nasty Burger.”_ Tucker responded.

“I’ll meet you guys there.” She began digging for her keys, holding the phone to her face with her shoulder. She’d dropped her keys down just moments ago, coming home, and—oh, they were under her bed, somehow. Kicked, in the shock of reading the book, perhaps. She tucked the book under her arm. “We need to figure this out.”

* * *

 

Samantha "Sam" Manson was furious.

She was constantly furious, but at a lot of things. She was furious at the current state of American politics. That people couldn’t love who they wanted to love. When people called her _Samantha_ instead of _Sam._ That the world was on fire and dying, and no one with the power to do anything seemed to care. That Tucker was eating another meat-heavy burger—though she’d figured that he’d come around eventually, at least, and that was the one thing she could affect.

She was also furious at her lapse in memory. How had that _happened_? There was a blank spot in her mind, as if something just _froze_ it. No memories, and she never even thought twice about it.

It wasn’t like any ghost they’d come across before. The only ones who could do something of this power—Desiree, if someone made a wayward wish. But she would usually be around to cause more chaos. Clockwork, maybe? He had to do with time. But he was in the Ghost Zone, and even though Sam and Tucker had apparently met him before time got reset a while ago, he wasn’t malicious. He would _tell_ them if Danny was needed elsewhere, right?

She stabbed again, at a fry on her plate.

“I don’t think murdering any more French fries is going to help us find Danny.”

“ _Tucker.”_ The glare sent her friend’s arms up in surrender, as they waited in a corner booth for Jazz to come in, with some _book_. They’d gotten a few more details out of her before she hung up before driving (very responsible, especially considering that their friend and her brother had seemingly disappeared out of thin air, even though it was a power of his) towards the fast-food chain.

She stabbed another fry. Her mind was screaming with thoughts. Jazz had suggested anger management, a while ago. Then she started hunting ghosts, became the human muscle of the team, and had something healthy to vent the anger out on.

“We’ll find him. I’m tracking his phone, right now.” Tucker didn’t look up from his tablet as he took a large, disgusting bite of the NastyBurger™.

Sam nodded, glancing up to see a frightened red-head storm her way into the restaurant. Nobody blinked at the eccentrics of the Fenton family anymore, though a few wandering tourists gazed over as the frazzled girl made her way to the back corner.

She sat down immediately, placing the large book in front of her. “I think the book’s thicker now, too. I don’t know what’s going on with this.”

On top, it read _The Second Book of Mostly Accurate Prophecies by Agnes Nutter, Witch._

Witch? Sam had heard rumors of witches truly existing, not just the ones she’d found online on _Tumblr_ with their crystals and herbs. True-blood witches, with magic abilities to boot.

“This book wasn’t this yesterday.” Jazz explained. “It was something about the Spirit world. I opened it, and, well, it changed. Can ghosts do that?”

Sam ran through her mental list of the ghosts they’d fought before. “I think there’s a Ghostwriter. Don’t know much about him except that he put Danny in the literal _Christmas Carol_.”

Tucker nodded. “No ghosts match that description on my files, either.” He repeated, holding up his tablet. “His cellphone isn’t showing up anywhere in the States.”

“Well, the first, uh…” Jazz hesitated, opening the book. “…’prophecy’ says that he’s in a land “ _across the sea_ ”.”

“England? Italy? Spain?”

“It doesn’t say.” She said, pushing the book closer for Sam to read.

She took a look at it—read the prophecy (that you already know, and that doesn’t need repeated) listed on the first page. “Heaven? Hell?”

“I don’t know if that’s literally what it means, or if they’re names for it. Prophecies are like that, at least, in the fiction I’ve read.” Jazz said, stealing a fry off of Sam’s tray.

Sam pushed the tray closer so they could share the large fries.

“Nothing in the Mediterranean.” Tucker relayed, still not glancing up from his tablet. “Or Spain. Is that Mediterranean?” He shrugged, continuing with his work. How he managed to hack government satellites around the world off just an iPad was beyond Sam. She owned an iPhone 3GS, too many expensive phones had been broken in ghost-hunting and this one seemed to be a bit sturdier.

“Girl of fire and flower?” Jazz read aloud. “Is that—is that supposed to be _me_?”

“Well… Your name is a flower. Your hair is red.” Sam pointed out. “Are there prophecies for every single day?” She flipped to a random page.

_The daughter of the night will ask if there be prophecies for every morning. To that I answer, ye._

“Huh. That answers that question.” She stated. She flipped back to the first page. “Who’s Agnes Nutter?”

Jazz shrugged. “A witch?”

“Yeah, duh. When was this written?” The book was old, like one of the books Sam would pick up in the little indie bookshop that existed on the corner of her street. The one where poetry slams were held, that she often dragged begrudging Danny and Tucker to at night, when there were few ghosts. The people there got a kick out of seeing _Phantom_ listen to poetry, sometimes.

The book didn’t seem to have a date on it. All they knew is that it was really, _really_ old. “So far, our only lead is an old book that apparently knows Jazz would pick it up and read the first prophecy, knew that I would leaf through the pages and see if it was real, and an empty hole in our memories?”

And fake memories. Fake memories that were fading into the voids of their mind.

(Fragile things, human memories were. Fragile things were memories created by ethereal and occult means, too. They never stuck in humans the way that they hoped, they could only hope that humans were too dumb to rationalize it themselves.)

“Ah—shit!”

“What?” Sam and Jazz glanced over at Tucker immediately after his reaction.

“I just had something in England pop up—London, I think. But it flickered out and isn’t there.”

London was a lead, at least.

* * *

 

Somewhere in London, Danny Fenton cursed that he lost his phone in his escape from Heaven. He hoped those white-winged bitches would _enjoy_ modern technology, seeing how empty the damn place was.


	4. Wanted Dead or Alive (But, Preferably, Both)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again. I hope you enjoy this chapter :)  
> It's a fun one :)  
> Next one will be really fun, too, I promise :)  
> Today, you get an entire Danny-centric chapter :)
> 
> Also asdfjkl; thank you all for your lovely comments!! (And nonbinary terms for magic uses, too. I've learned more than I'll ever have to know. Halfta know. Ha-ha, pun.)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> ~~god I hope I wrote Hastur right~~

Danny had just dealt with angels. He’d seen the blazing glory of their auras, felt the sting of both holy water and hellfire as they tried to convince him to play a part for their war, remembered their shocked faces as he managed to free himself from his constraints and flee.

But demons? _Demons?_ He’d been called the name before by ghost hunters, by his own parents (unknowingly), had heard the word whispered in the Ghost Zone, but he never thought they were real. Now, of course, if Heaven was real, Hell was, too, and Danny wasn’t kidnapped by _angels_ to be the catalyst in a war against humans.

They weren’t as nice as angels, either. Which was saying something about the way angels had treated him in heaven. This demon in particular wasn’t very _nice_ , especially considering his looks. His hair was a pale blond, almost white like Phantom would have, except it was a sickly blond. His face was almost in a state of decay, black eyes stared directly through Danny’s soul.

There was also the frog on his head, but Danny was choosing to ignore that in the fact that a _demon_ was standing in front of him.

Oh, and Danny was bleeding, still. That was nice. The demon’s hands were crackling with energy, Danny could smell the faint smell of something burning mixed with sulfur. _Great_.

“Humans are all the same, are they?” The demon groaned. “All self-righteous, like those angelic bastards up in heaven.” He seemed flabbergasted at first, sighing loudly (even though Danny knew that none of them really had to breathe). “We are one in the same, you know? Ghosts aren’t too far from us demons—”

Maybe ghosts _weren’t_ too far away from demons. Maybe ghosts did exist in some sort of middle plane, between heaven and hell but not quite purgatory. Maybe ghosts _were_ monsters. “Yeah, no thanks dude. Your buddies from _up there_ already tried it, and I’m not about to go through Actual Suffering _but two_ this time.”

Of course, the demon had no idea what meme Danny just referenced. He wasn’t entirely sure of the meme, either, being too busy with ghost hunting at night to be caught up-to-date with the latest memes on Twitter or the rare chance, Tumblr, but he’d heard _two_ mentioned somewhere. The mention of the meme seemed to make the demon even angrier; whatever semblance of a human disguise the being had melted into pure inky black eyes.

Oh, yeah. The air definitely is smelling like sulfur.

“I don’t like _jokes_.”

Oh, yeah. Danny definitely shouldn’t have said that. But at this point, he also did not care any less. When the forces of heaven and hell are both tormenting and following you, it’s natural to get a little snippy, especially when you know they want to use you in some _war_ , and you may have stolen something from a vending machine just an hour before and you feel terrible for doing it, but hunger is still gnawing at you because you’re not entirely human and your metabolism is faster than a hamster on an LSD trip running on its wheel.

The demon lunged at him, sparks flying from his palms. Danny didn’t know whether it was hellfire or regular fire, and didn’t want to find out. With the remaining energy he had left, he ducked out of the way, barely managing to turn himself intangible as fire hit the ground behind them. It left a large, black scorch mark on the ground.

 _Run._ Danny didn’t need to be told twice about running, he spun around on his heels and bolted out of the alley as soon as he could. He didn’t know where he was—there was some kind of park, but London had a lot of parks and he was sure he’d seen them all. If he squinted looking back, he could see the tip of the London Eye from this particular park.

He decided then if he ever got a _free_ second and a nap in at some point, he would go on the London Eye and laugh at all the small people below him. It was one thing to fly, but to not use up any of his energy and just see everything still?

He ducked through the crowd, including jumping over a small crowd of ducks. Ducks in this particular park—St. James’ Park, to be more precise, was the name of the park that Danny found himself running through. The ducks feared no mortals, immortals, or other beings of living and dead that wandered through—didn’t even flinch at humans that passed.

Speaking of humans, they didn’t flinch or budge, either. Most people hadn’t batted an eye at Danny, and he couldn’t tell if it was because of some divine or occult influence placed over him or if Londoners were _just like that_. Either way, none of the people in the park batted an eye at the boy being chased by a demon.  

 _Think, Fenton._ There was no way he would be able to outrun a demon. He’d slipped away from angels before, because they didn’t understand what it meant to be a _halfa_ , and perhaps even though demons claimed they were closer to ghosts, they didn’t know, either. Even if Danny didn’t know what it meant to be a halfa because he was the only one in existence, it was an advantage that he had over the demon.

He saw a crowd of students, no doubt on some kind of field trip. They looked bored and uninterested in their trip, and even though Danny couldn’t tell how _old_ they were, they seemed to be close enough to his age. He could blend in, but—

No. No, he felt his stomach fall as he skidded to a stop. No, he had to do more. He had enough energy for it, could he hide from them just like that?

He didn’t like to use this power. It was almost as bad as his wail ability, but in a different way. While his self-dubbed “Ghostly Wail” involved a large banshee-like scream that drained him of his energy completely, his final resort, there was one other ability he had never been a fan of. It was manipulative, it was _gross_ , and especially in human form, downright uncomfortable. Overshadowing people had never been his favorite. He can’t even call it what it is, _possession_ , because it leaves a gross taste in his mouth and it feels _just like Vlad_.

But it might be his only chance. He ducks into invisibility and feels a cold air wrap around him, his ghostly core spiking in power despite not entirely existing yet.

_Don’t take over completely. Just… hitch a ride. Yeah._

He ducked into the first kid he saw.

* * *

 

If this had been any more of a cliché story, then Danny Fenton would have inadvertently overshadowed the boy-who-used-to-be-the-Antichrist, Adam Young himself. And yes, it was indeed his school who had gone on the trip to London together, but destiny had other plans for Adam.

Which, mainly consisted of staying at home with a terrible case of hay fever mixed with a stomach bug, causing him to completely miss the London trip he was excited to go on. He had Dog as company, cuddled close to him; a bowl of lukewarm soup that didn't taste particularly well but it was made with his mother's love, and he felt it bite through his stuffed nose; and more than enough magazines to read that Anathema had lent him. 

It was the Ineffable Plan, working just as well as it had been since it was set into motion six thousand years ago.

But it wasn’t over yet.

* * *

 

It was weird, existing as a _presence_ in some kid’s mind. He got the ages horribly wrong; these kids were middle schoolers (or, whatever the equivalence was), only about eleven years old, most of them. But this kid looked _taller_ than Danny, and he assumed.

Well, no matter. Hiding in a human suit was getting rather uncomfortable, especially when instincts were telling him to _push forward and control_ his “host”, but his morals of _controlling_ someone argued much against that.

He used what energy he had left to reach out—not to control, but to _share_ , and to try not alert the boy to his presence. Not that the boy, _Brian_ , even noticed that Danny was there. He’d managed to pick a kid whose brain seemed to be filled of absolutely nothing, and for the first time in a while, Danny actually felt lucky.

 _Turn left_. It wasn’t controlling. It was a suggestion, Danny didn’t expect Brian to turn his head left, to see the park he had just come out of and watch the demon, who was chasing him, stop and stumble around, disoriented. There was a twinge of familiarity that Brian instantly felt, and Danny did, too. Maybe the demon looked like someone the boy knew.

Danny shrugged it off. They kept their eyes on the demon, who seemed to have the equivalence of a temper tantrum before giving up and burrowing into the ground. _Burrowing_. Through _concrete._

“Brian. Earth to Brian.” A girl’s voice broke through their brain. _Pepper_ , Brian recognized. “Brian, we’re moving on. Come on.”

“Right. Sorry.” Brian shook his head, clearing it of wayward thoughts—or, nothing, really. It was like he was trying to shake things to get something started again, like a child’s toy full of glitter that moved through water when it was thrown around.

That was his chance. Danny ducked out, still invisible to the crowd, and held onto that invisibility. Oh, they were right outside of one of the fancy British palaces. Buckingham, was it?

Danny got to see something cool, at least. When the crowd of schoolchildren turned and began walking away, Danny allowed himself to pop into existence, only frightening a few pigeons that reminded him of the ducks that he’d jumped over—unafraid of people, living or dead.

_The birds work for the bourgeoisie._

His stomach growled, again. Loudly, and he was sure a few tourists glanced around to find the source of the haunting grumble.

“Ah, fuck.” He mumbled to himself. He was really going to need to find a better way to get food than stealing out of vending machines. Without taking advantage of people, too. Shrugging, he shoved his hands into his pockets, and began walking in the direction he came.

* * *

 

Stealing out of vending machines was the only thing he seemed to be able to do, really. Turning his body completely invisible and reaching an intangible arm into the back to just take a few bags of chips—or, crisps, he was in London, after all—and a granola bar. The bags of chips were eaten in only a few seconds, recycled properly like Sam would expect, and the granola bar was shoved into his pocket for later.

It wasn’t much, nutritionally, but it did relieve him somewhat. Maybe the bleeding scratch would finally stop; he may have grabbed a jacket off a mannequin in a store he’d passed. Not the most fashionable thing, but the questions of “you okay, mate?” and “should I call someone?” stopped tremendously after that, but it did nothing to mend the pain.

He had wandered more. Danny had unfortunately inherited his father’s poor sense of direction on the street (though flying was a different story for him. Everything looked better from up above, and he could easily remember routes through Amity that he took without even having to glance down at street names.) and had gotten lost.

(Though, if you were curious about the exact spot he was in London, it was in a little neighborhood named Soho that contained a familiar book shop where an angel and a demon currently relaxed, with a cup of coffee and a cup of hot cocoa, enjoying the unusual few days of fair weather. If either of them had managed to miracle a few days clear this week, neither of them commented on it or confessed.)

Of course, he was completely lost until he found some way to make just a _little bit of money_ or someone with international calling to see if he could call home and get Jazz, or Tuck, or Sam, or _someone_ to get through the Ghost Zone and find help.

 _Dora… No use, unless I want a dragon to terrify London._ He smiled at the thought, and then a brief memory flashed of a moment in history class. The Great Fire of London in 1666. _No, not again. Clockwork would be the best shot, but knowing him, he’s just enjoying this entire mess from his comfy little tour with a bag of popcorn. Ghost-popcorn?_ He tried to imagine what it would be like for a ghost to eat.

He’d eaten before, yes, but Danny was half-human and needed to eat. Vlad had eaten, too, portions much like Danny had to consume, their metabolisms too fast for their body to comprehend. If they didn’t have ghost cores, they’d probably be fully-dead by now. But ghosts never had to eat, sleep, breathe, or do anything living.

 _Vlad? Oh, God, no._ Now that he knew God existed, should he stop using that name? _Ancients, no? Someone, no? I don’t know…_

 _Frostbite?_ He had the Infi-Map, and they were, like, an army. An army that would consider him allies. They were friends, the closest that Danny had, despite their differing cores. _Yeah. He’d help._

At least Danny had a plan, now—though, the plan was slowly unraveling when he turned a corner and saw one of those blasted _angels_ again. It was that one—Gabriel, was it—that was the one who kidnapped him, tortured him, hunted him down… He hadn’t noticed him, yet.

Right on the corner was a store. It was too close for Danny’s comfort to the angel. Could angels sense him, just as he could sense them? He’d get into the store. If he had to, and he didn’t want to, he’d do his overshadow-trick again until the angel left. Though, Danny hoped it wouldn’t come to possessing-- or, as he preferred to think of it, hitching a ride—someone around him every time he came across someone.

Danny ducked into the door, just as he felt a pair of purple eyes come on him.

But nothing came of it, and he found himself in a warm bookstore.


	5. Well, This Didn't Go Well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title says _all_
> 
> I was sooo tempted to title it "He Is Not Who He Says He Is" but that's next chapter. Nexxxxt chapter. 
> 
> I hope I wrote the husbands well enough :') 
> 
> Friendly reminder I have a Tumblr and if you wanna ask me stuff about this fic/whatever else I write, that's the best place to find me!!  
> http://cosmonaughtt.tumblr.com

Danny wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he entered the bookstore—certainly, not a sudden warm feeling coming over him. A warm feeling, one he could describe only as coming home on a cold afternoon to the smell of something baking in the house.

Not that he, of course, had ever experienced that himself. Both of his parents and his sister were awful at cooking. His father could make fudge, at the very least. Danny usually took up most of the cooking, though he’d resigned months after the Accident for not having time for it, between school and protecting his town from otherworldly invaders.

The store, itself, smelled amazing. Danny understood why his sister loved the smell of old books, why Sam loved the little indie bookstore on the corner of her street. Even though he hadn’t read much in years, there was a certain nostalgia for warm, sunny afternoons that Danny found himself remembering, before his situation snapped him back into reality.

_Right._ He was in London, being chased by both _angels_ and _demons_ , to be used in some kind of Armageddon 2: Electric Boogaloo. He was so far away from home, still feeling jet lag, and unsurprisingly, still wounded. The small bumps, bruises, and scrapes had healed up quickly, joining his collection of many scars. The biggest one, where a holy knife or whatever had cut him open, on his stomach, was still tender, and even though the bleeding had stopped he could still feel the pain twinge through his entire body.

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.

He opened them.

“Oh, excuse me. Welcome to A.Z. Fell and…” Danny’s attention was immediately caught by a sudden, new voice—he turned around, and saw a regular person.

No. _Not_ a regular person. The aura was pretty strong, like ones that Danny had encountered before. An _angel_. Or, something like an angel. There was an off _flicker_ to it, a shimmer, a glamour, that made it stand out from the other auras he’d been able to see before.

Danny yelped, of course. He jumped back, trying to get away from the not-angel that just appeared behind him. He bumped the bookshelf behind him, and a couple books came tumbling down onto him.

“Oh, oh dear.” The not-angel person puttered. “Here, let me help you…”

Danny glared, and he felt ectoplasm rage in his bloodstream. It wasn’t often that he allowed himself to  do this--  the “angry eyes”, that had been dubbed by Vlad—but  when creatures are threatened, often times instincts take over, and his glowing, toxic green, ectoplasmic eyes were meant to be a deterrent, a protection for himself, an intimidation.

The not-angel—well, you ought to know who this is at this point, shouldn’t you? A.Z. Fell & Co Bookshop was owned by none other than Aziraphale, principality, guardian of the Eastern Gate of Eden, and angel (?) that helped thwart the End Times—blinked in response, immediately retracting his hand. And while Aziraphale’s corporation looked and passed as human, but like many angels and demons, there were a few things… off, about him.

His blue eyes, for one, were just _slightly_ off in color. No human ever commented, the truth hidden under an easy glamour, but Danny, as we know, is more than _human_ , and while he isn’t seeing Aziraphale’s true celestial form, he sees through the glamour put over the corporeal form, and the unnatural, blue _glow_ screams right back at him.

“God, I can’t catch a break with you guys, huh?” Danny snapped, quickly standing back up and setting the books aside. He’s still backed up into the bookshelf, mind you.

Aziraphale blinked back in response. In his perspective, this teenager who looked in trouble waltzed into his store, just before he was going to close for the night, dressed in a jacket and _reeking_ of blood, and was startled upon seeing him—rather unfair, for him to go through, really. And, there was the issue of the glowing eyes that Aziraphale had received upon being in this teenager’s presence, but he didn’t comment.

After all, in angelic terms, Aziraphale was the most civil. And simple, too, but he was the most civil.

Also he also had no idea on the matter that Danny was speaking of.

“I- I beg your pardon?” Aziraphale stuttered, nervously.

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again—I’m not going to agree with whatever your plan is. Tell your buddies up in Heaven to _leave me alone_ , alright?” Danny’s words are laced with more venom than Aziraphale has ever heard, including from a demon.

Not to mention, the boy knew that he was an _angel_ , and Aziraphale hadn’t felt like he dropped any of his glamour.

This was rather odd and tense, for both involved.

* * *

 

Of course, as things do, this situation was about to get just a tad bit worse for Danny. He had stumbled upon a bookstore with an angel waiting in there for him—or so he thought, it was just Aziraphale existing in his shop—but the angel was not alone.

The angel was hardly alone, in the after-End Times, always seeking the company of a certain demon. With no ties to heaven or hell, the two celestial beings were rather bored, and the only company that had that were not humans were each other; their times together, clandestine meetings when neither side was looking, increased exponentially, no longer having to hide.

Speaking of the demon, Crowley had been enjoying a cup of coffee—one of the few, non-alcoholic drinks he enjoyed and was possibly involved in the process of creating, because when humans had too much energy, well, there was the old saying of “idle hands are the devil's workshop”, and maybe he enjoyed the shock of energy to his system, too—before Aziraphale had gotten up to greet the new customer.

And when he heard a _thud_ , some indescribable chatter, Crowley put down his cup and sighed. Not that he particularly needed to _sigh_ , but the process of breathing in deeply and letting it all out was a nice refresher for anyone, really.

“Aziraphale, what is—” He stopped, at the scene in front of him.

A teenage boy, shaggy black hair, smelling of _death_ and _blood_ , was standing next to a bookshelf, where a few fallen books had taken a tumble, no doubt on him. The boy was human, but something about him set off alarms in Crowley’s head.

And, the boy seemed to have his own alarms, and he looked at Crowley, wide-eyed, and then back at Aziraphale, who was standing calmly and trying—and failing—to diffuse whatever situation Crowley had walked in on.

“A demon too. Wow. I’m dead. I’m, like, full-dead now.” The boy ran his hands through his hair, wincing at a pain.

Crowley turned to Aziraphale, giving the teenage boy a strange look. “So, uh, who’s this?”

Aziraphale shrugged, pouting. “I’m not sure, dear. But he knew that I am— _an angel_ —” He lowered his voice, despite the three of them being the only ones in the shop. “And, well, he knows you are a demon.”

“Yeah, I could tell.” Crowley took pride in being a demon, most of the time. There were times where he mourned his life before his Fall; not being an angel, in the pearly-white gates, but the feeling of Her Grace in his being, a warm comfort that left when he sauntered vaguely downwards. But when the word demon was used, against him, by a _human_ , there was a bit of a sting. Perhaps more, since he was certain that he was not-entirely-a-demon anymore.

The boy was still freaking out, and Crowley was tired of it. “Alright, that’s enough.” He snapped his fingers, and the boy fell to the floor, unconscious. Into the pile of books, but other than the wounds he already had, he fell to the ground, unharmed. Or, maybe one more bump somewhere, but Crowley wasn’t counting.

“Crowley!”

“What?” Aziraphale glanced at the boy, before looking at him again. “Oh, come on, I did him a _favor_. He was freaking out, so I calmed him down.”

Aziraphale took a deep breath. “Calming down a human and knocking them unconscious is not the same _thing_.” He looked back at the boy, leaning down and pushing the hair out of his face. Something flashed across the angel’s mind. “Crowley, do you remember running into Gabriel, earlier?”

“Not particularly.” He’d rather _forget_ about running into any Archangel, mind you. But that was a lie; yes, he _did_ remember running into Gabriel, but not much of the conversation or _why_ he was running.

“Well, to jog your memory a bit, he asked us a question. He was looking for a teenage human boy, and…” He glanced down at the teenage boy, now asleep on the floor of his bookshop. “…I believe this is the boy.” It was Aziraphale’s turn to snap his fingers, and the boy had disappeared, but the soft breathing could still be heard; this time, from the back of the shop, on the comfortable sofa where Crowley sat moments ago.

“Oh, yeah. That.” Crowley mumbled, sauntering close after Aziraphale to the back. He allowed himself a second, quick miracle—the books that had fallen, the angel would find later, were put back onto the shelf, as if they were never touched.

The boy slept on, peacefully. It was something he needed; Crowley could tell. While the human slept, Crowley finally got a better look at him. The boy’s jacket had been removed, hanging off the arm of the chair, and the ratted t-shirt stood out. There was blood caking his white t-shirt, a mixture of red, and…

“Is that something _green_ in his blood?”

Aziraphale hadn’t noticed; he had turned around, digging through a few drawers behind him. He found what he was looking for, pulling out a large, white box with a red cross on it. _First aid._ Which Crowley didn’t register in his mind at first, because surely Aziraphale could just miracle away the wounds the teenager had?

“It… Well, it is. And…” Aziraphale mumbled, cutting himself off.

“And…?”

“Oh, _nothing_.”

“’Nothing’?”

“It would be impossible. What I’m thinking of.”

“What you’re thinking…” Crowley turned back to the boy. _Green, death, blood…_ He didn’t know. He turned back to Aziraphale. “What is it, angel?”

“Crowley, how much do you know about souls?”

“Souls?” He knew that, when humans died, their souls—what God had made, individually, in heaven, when she wasn’t busy watching all of humanity fight each other over the most trivial things—were destined for four places. Even in death, humans always seemed to have a choice. If they were “good”, they would be able to go to lowercase-heaven, where they existed for eternity in paradise. If they were “bad”, then lowercase-hell existed, too, for the opposite reason.  There was also purgatory, the middle ground, the judgement hall. And sometimes, humans were too stubborn for their own good, and their souls remained on earth, becoming spirits. “What about them?”

“Well, when a human spirit becomes too attached to something _here_ , it changes from just a _soul_ —to a spirit. Or a ghost. Or a phantom. Or a… Well, you get the idea.”

Aziraphale threw a hand in the air, and the gauze in the first-aid kit wrapped itself around the boy’s midsection. It soaked up a bit more of the red-green blood, and Crowley’s stomach churned. He continued, “Spirits are made of their own energy, different from what souls are made of. And it’s called, uh…”

“Ectoplasm!” See, Crowley knew _some_ things. You don’t exist six-thousand years on the planet and learn _nothing._ “Is it green, though?”

Aziraphale shrugged; it was something he was a loss for, as well. And it only added to the strange oddity that was the human boy in front of them. How could he tell what they were? Why was Heaven—and, probably, Hell—after him? Why did he have ectoplasm in his blood? _What_ was he?

“He’ll wake up in… an hour, or so.” Crowley decided. He was tempted to let the boy sleep in longer, but the questions were pressing, so he decided that the boy would wake up then. And he would explain everything. And then the two of them would get him out of the bookshop, because the last thing they wanted was to be involved in another fight between Heaven and Hell. Or, in all reality, to be involved at all.

It was _them_ against the world, and no strange American boy would change that.

 


	6. update/hiatus

same thing like with  _willow tree_ , this is just an update to announce a hiatus. i'll probably be back in a few months with invigorated writing for this, though, hahaha!

**Author's Note:**

> This story just came to me like one of Agnes Nutter's prophetic visions. Maybe I'm a witch. Wizard? What's the nonbinary term for that?
> 
> Either way I hope you enjoy this crack-treated-seriously fic. I tried to put it on the back burner but it demanded to be written instead of my other stories. Once I wear this out, it's rinse and repeat for _Achromatic_ and _Willow Tree_. It also demanded to be written starting with Agnes first, and it snowballed, and here we are. More action will happen in future chapters I promise. 
> 
> Again, a lot of my DP lore comes from my own AU, which you can [read here](https://cosmonaughtt.tumblr.com/post/184355866395/how-id-rewrite-danny-phantom). It's changed a bit because it's not like Willow Tree where Danny is in a different world, this is set in the same world (if it wasn't clear by the narration, it's all same world). More lore on that later-- that's where the canon divergence comes in, bae-by!


End file.
